Overfertilization and chemical pollution of surface waters and degradation of potable water sources in densely populated areas is becoming a serious problem, calling for efficient removal of the various organic and nitrogenous compounds, phosphates and bacteria and viruses from all wastewaters.
Processes for the removal of the above contaminants have been established and are practiced in large municipal sewage treatment facilities.
To accomodate the various process stages required to remove the various contaminants such treatment plants are complex and hard to scale down to serve single family dwellings retaining the required efficiency and economy.
Consequently, housing developments are being served exclusively by centralized sewage treatment plants with the sewage being collected and transported to treatment plants via underground sewage collection-transportation systems.
As the population increases such sewage collection-transportation systems become expensive and quite often a limiting factor affecting community planing and/or development.
Although small sewage treatment plants are available, as yet they do not provide the desired degree of purification and do not offer the required process and mechanical reliability.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an apparatus in which the various processes to remove pollutants present in sanitary waters could be carried out reliably and unattended and at acceptable cost when serving single family dwellings.
More particularly it is the object of this invention to provide an apparatus that would reliably maintain all conditions required for efficient biooxidation of organic matter, biological transformation of the various nitrogenous compounds, chemical precipitation of soluble phosphates, chemical oxidation of the residual organics, efficient removal of bacteria and viruses and will render the effluent non-toxic to aquatic life and harmless to vegetation.
Another object of this invention is to provide an inexpensive and reliable method for storing and proportioning of the chemicals to the unsteady or batchwise flow of the incoming raw sewage.
Another object of this invention is to provide an inexpensive and reliable apparatus that will be easy to scale up or down to serve single or multiple family dwellings.
Another object of this invention is to provide an apparatus in which efficient separation of suspended solids from the effluent is achieved inside the aeration reactor so that a separate clarifier is not needed.
Another object of this invention is to provide an apparatus that would require only once per year replenishment of the used chemicals and only once or twice per year withdrowal of the excess sludge.
It is also an object of this invention to provide an apparatus capable of reliable and unattended operation when processing raw sewage on ships under conditions of ship motion and vibration.
It is still another object of the invention to provide an apparatus that would be capable to operate reliably also with powdered minerals or activated carbon or their mixture added into the aeration chambers.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved suspended solids separator that would not be affected by "sloshing" that normally occures on ships during heavy roll and pitch conditions.
Other objects and features of the invention will be set forth more fully hereinafter.
The full nature of the invention will be understood from the accompanying drawing and the following description and claims.